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Charles Billingsley - Marks (cont.)

Many of the songs that Charles has written have come out a desire to see God in the midst of tragedy. He recently finished reading Foxes Book of Martyrs, and he lists Bonhoeffer's, The Cost of Discipleship as his favorite book of all time because of how it aims to produce a life that radiates joy in the journey. And it is that joy that spills over onto both his live performances and his CDs.

Billingsley confesses to spending every other day of his life getting on or off of a plane, and says his whole ministry is based on his live performances, yet he doesn't consider himself to be much of an artist. "When I'm not singing, I don't even think about music," he laughes. A high school jock who spent three years as a Nautilus exercise-instructor, he says a perfect day would be spent playing racquetball, lifting weights (he bench presses 320 lbs, down from the 350 lbs he pressed in college), and hanging out with his wife, Shea.

He says he always considered singing to be a "sissyfied" past-time. But when a friend overheard him sing, "just goofing around, really", and asked him to sing for Sunday School, he was hooked. "I really felt a peace up there, singing for the first time," he says. His first solo? The {{Steve Green}} classic, "Wounded Soldier." Offers to minister in song soon began pouring in, and Billingsley continued to sing all the way through college at Samford University, and began his solo ministry as soon as he graduated.

A year and a half later, he was asked to join NewSong, and spent a couple of years with that band before returning to his first love. "I felt like I wasn't really called to be in {{NewSong}}," he says of his decision to leave the highly successful band. "I felt like I was called to the solo thing."

Billingsley is a man who has discovered that trusting God leads to peace, and experiencing the peace of God leads to greater trust. And that while sorrow may endure for a night, joy comes in the morning. He and his wife recently gave birth to their first child, a son, Caleb, and Billingsley is ecstatic. And they're now anticipating their second.

"I was scared half out of my mind," he laughs. "It has freaked me out to think of being a parent. But I do look forward to just watching these children grow up, to observing the simplicity of it all. My life tends to get so complicated, I know these kids will ground me, making the important things important. A baby is so dependent, and I hope I can learn a dependence on the Lord that comes from a simple child-like faith."